In a case of shooting while tracking a moving photographic subject, as methods of controlling a direction of an imaging apparatus so as not to lose the photographic subject from a monitor screen of the imaging apparatus, a method of controlling the direction of the imaging apparatus such that a shooting area in the foreground in a moving direction of a photographic subject becomes larger than a shooting area in the background in the moving direction of the photographic subject (see Japanese patent application publication number 2006-229322), and a method of controlling the direction of the imaging apparatus such that a photographic subject does not disappear from the monitor screen while tracking the photographic subject (see Japanese patent application publication number
As for a pan-blur shooting, as schematically illustrated in FIG. 1, in a case of shooting a photographic subject which is moving at high speed, when shooting is performed while an imaging apparatus (camera) tracks in a moving direction (for example, a direction of an arrow A) of the moving photographic subject at the same speed as a moving speed of an image O of the moving photographic subject on a monitor screen G, the moving photographic subject is shot clearly, and an image T of a photographic subject that is a still object existing in a background is flowing (streaked), so that the background is blurred. In an image taken by the pan-blur shooting, a high-speed movement of the photographic subject is further emphatically expressed.
However, in the pan-blur shooting, it is necessary to have a high skill in order to correspond a tracking speed of a camera to a moving speed of a photographic subject, and it is difficult for general users to perform such a shooting, and therefore there are many cases of failure by the users in the pan-blur shooting.
Japanese patent application publication numbers 2006-229322 and 2009-100454 have proposed methods of controlling the direction of the imaging apparatus such that the photographic subject does not disappear from the monitor screen G while tracking the photographic subject. However, even if the photographic subject does not disappear from the monitor screen G, if there is a difference of speed between a moving speed of the photographic subject on the screen and a tracking speed of a camera, there is a problem such that the image O of the photographic subject on the monitor screen G relatively moves in the case of the pan-blur shooting, and the image O of the photographic subject is blurred, and therefore a suitable pan-blur shot image is not obtained.